Simple Questions Simple Answers - Page 571

On February 29 2012 20:05 DontLoseSightOfIt wrote:So many people including me have this confused.

The new patch 1.4.3 introduced EPM.

So, Effective actions per minute )EPM basically counts the "useless" spamming stuff right? Whereas APM only counts the useful stuff? They get mixed up because "Effective" should really be the APM....counting the "useful" stuff.

So, can someone with 100% confidence about this explain to me?

As far as I can tell, APM is Blizzard's APM that doesn't count repeated selection (control group/selection spamming), and EPM counts all actions including repeated selection.

On February 29 2012 20:05 DontLoseSightOfIt wrote:So many people including me have this confused.

The new patch 1.4.3 introduced EPM.

So, Effective actions per minute )EPM basically counts the "useless" spamming stuff right? Whereas APM only counts the useful stuff? They get mixed up because "Effective" should really be the APM....counting the "useful" stuff.

So, can someone with 100% confidence about this explain to me?

As far as I can tell, APM is Blizzard's APM that doesn't count repeated selection (control group/selection spamming), and EPM counts all actions including repeated selection.

Blizzard actually admitted that and are trying to fix it.

Ah well who cares about APM and EPM they are confusing and Blizzard made a mistake, making it even more confusing.

Just play to win :D

Regarding the imbalance, hilarious to see Zergs defending themselves....

This is the best place I could think to post, it's not quite a strategy question, more of a "help me find a good replay/VoD of a certain thing happening" which will help me out.

I watch a lot of GSL and MLG and I have seen a few games ZvZ where one side rushes lings and the other has to drone drill to defend, I'm currently searching through VoDs to try to find a good close game (or generally as many games as I can where this happened, however one side starting with some overwhelming advantage for some reason is less helpful obviously) preferably one with excellent use of the drone drill.

Anyone remember any games you could point me at to save me some time?

Also is there a micromap to practice drone drilling?

But he is never making short-term prediction, everyone of his prediction are based on fundenmentals, but he doesn't exactly know when it will happen... So using these kind of narrowed "who-is-right" empirical analysis makes little sense.

I just opened 14pool against an FFE and my protoss opponent threw down a pylon behind my natural expansions mineral fields. I saw this with my overlord and immediately sent 4 drones to deny the pylon, however it got up with around 30% hp left (but no shield left), afterwards he threw down 2 cannons and another pylon. Lings weren't there in time and drones couldn't deny the pylon. If I sent more drones I would have been behind in economy if he just skipped throwing down additional structures. How the hell am i supposed to deal with this?

On March 01 2012 04:04 General_Winter wrote:How should I deal with mutas in pvz on cloud kingdom?

I really want to like this map to support community map making, but pvz drives me crazy. The walk distance from the main to the third is Sooooooo long and the flight distance so short.

Just to clarify this isn't the big complex question "what do I do vs mutas?" it's the smaller question what do I do differently on cloud kingdom. Thanks!

Stalkers can blink from the cliff above the third, so if you have your Stalkers positioned up there, they can guard the third and your main at the same time. Also, you can just split up your Stalkers; Mutalisks are fragile and expensive little things, and it doesn't take your entire Stalker force to make harassment cost inefficient. Half your Stalkers, a few cannons and an HT with Storm once the Muta numbers start to grow should be enough to keep you in good shape.

This isn't probably a simple question, but since I still can't open Threads: there is any build or "rules of thumbs topic" that talk about the mid and late game? Because in the early game I know what to do thanks to the numerous build over the net, but after that, there isn't some good build or guidelines to continue the battle in the most efficient way? Because I continue to lose in games that go after the early games, wasting resources in troops, constructions, techs and everything, without a clear plan of what to do/do not..

I'm a Toss player, and I'm still learning the game (I have been playing for 2 weeks or so, still in silver league btw). Thanks for your help!

What's a safe build that involves a (very) fast expansion in TvT that allows me to easily transition into bio (not bio-tank)?Ideally it should also involve some kind of early stim/medivac/shields-timing.

On March 01 2012 05:59 Gudradan wrote:This isn't probably a simple question, but since I still can't open Threads: there is any build or "rules of thumbs topic" that talk about the mid and late game? Because in the early game I know what to do thanks to the numerous build over the net, but after that, there isn't some good build or guidelines to continue the battle in the most efficient way? Because I continue to lose in games that go after the early games, wasting resources in troops, constructions, techs and everything, without a clear plan of what to do/do not..

I'm a Toss player, and I'm still learning the game (I have been playing for 2 weeks or so, still in silver league btw). Thanks for your help!

It's because you generally want to react to what your opponent is doing, hence the lack of a dedicated thread to such a broad topic. For example, if your opponent grabs a really fast 3rd base, you don't want to be turtling in a defensive position on 2base.

There is a lot of discussion about mid-late game, they're just not as specific as the early game discussions where you can execute a build order to the exact supply and second every game.

Since you're a new player, don't focus too much on trying to read what your opponent is doing. Just focus on your macro and general game mechanics and you'll find yourself rapidly improving in other areas. Make probes non-stop, expand when your bases get saturated, keep your income low by making production structures in time and then making units from them, and try not to get supply blocked. Stuff like that is common sense, which is why no one really 'discusses' it. But if you aren't comfortable doing all these things instinctively it is definitely definitely definitely the first thing you should look to master.

Later, you'll want to figure out the more specific things like what good unit compositions are, how to react to your opponent, etc.

Basically just play more, figure out the game, and figure out what your race is capable of ^^

On March 01 2012 05:53 lorkac wrote:I'm a Terran player who wants to switch to Protoss. (not becaus of imba--TvP is my best matchup actually)

What mechanics should I focus on learning first?

Chrono timings, forcefields, warp ins, etc....

"all of them" is not an answer I want because I'm trying to focus during my ladder games to fix individual problems at a time.

I guess hitting your warp-ins would be the biggest concern since it's a very different mechanic than queuing units. It's also less forgiving in that there is no time in between cooldown that you can 'spend' your resources, so you can only make use of your warpgates the second after the go off cooldown, whereas for barracks you can just queue an additional marine when the one currently building is, say, 90% done or whenever it is you have the allocated resources.

Chrono usage isn't all that important at lower levels and shouldn't be your focus if you're just learning the race. Just use it whenever you remember to I guess.

It depends on your playstyle but if you play according to the metagame anywhere between now and the last year or so, there are a ton of situations where protoss basically lives or dies by their forcefields. Definitely a skill you should start to get comfortable using.

edit:

On March 01 2012 06:06 PinheadXXXXXX wrote:does a cc first build by your opponent have an earlier window in when to push out to kill them than a 1 rax expand, or is it the other way around?

cc first build has the earlier window since they would have no units.

cc first basically sacrifices early units to get more economy. Once the income from a cc first starts to kick in, eventually the player who went cc first will have more units because he has had more income for a significantly longer period of time. However he is weak in that window where he is sacrificing units for economy.

On March 01 2012 06:06 PinheadXXXXXX wrote:does a cc first build by your opponent have an earlier window in when to push out to kill them than a 1 rax expand, or is it the other way around?

cc first build has the earlier window since they would have no units.

cc first basically sacrifices early units to get more economy. Once the income from a cc first starts to kick in, eventually the player who went cc first will have more units because he has had more income for a significantly longer period of time. However he is weak in that window where he is sacrificing units for economy.

So does the timing window to hit a cc first end sooner than a 1 rax expand?

On February 29 2012 16:45 Stipulation wrote:I have this problem where I try to cast a series of forcefields or graviton beams (I assume it is the same with other spell, but I play toss and don't use too many storms, so I don't know) and after my first click I am no longer in the mode to cast the spell even though I still have the key pressed on the keyboard. This only happens when my mouse is over a unit at the time that I select the spell by hitting the key on my keyboard. Has anyone else experienced this?I am using a Razer Abyssus with the Razer drivers.

Video demonstration. I'm certain I'm holding the 'f' key down the whole time, and not making a left click.

I have the exact same problem, I have to put forcefields one at a time.If I hold in the F key only 1 forcefield will come.I have Razer Lycosa if it matters.

On March 01 2012 07:32 Forbidden17 wrote:It's because you generally want to react to what your opponent is doing, hence the lack of a dedicated thread to such a broad topic. For example, if your opponent grabs a really fast 3rd base, you don't want to be turtling in a defensive position on 2base.

There is a lot of discussion about mid-late game, they're just not as specific as the early game discussions where you can execute a build order to the exact supply and second every game.

Since you're a new player, don't focus too much on trying to read what your opponent is doing. Just focus on your macro and general game mechanics and you'll find yourself rapidly improving in other areas. Make probes non-stop, expand when your bases get saturated, keep your income low by making production structures in time and then making units from them, and try not to get supply blocked. Stuff like that is common sense, which is why no one really 'discusses' it. But if you aren't comfortable doing all these things instinctively it is definitely definitely definitely the first thing you should look to master.

Later, you'll want to figure out the more specific things like what good unit compositions are, how to react to your opponent, etc.

Basically just play more, figure out the game, and figure out what your race is capable of ^^

I appreciate your help, I'll try to focus on my macro & understanding of the game.

On February 29 2012 16:45 Stipulation wrote:I have this problem where I try to cast a series of forcefields or graviton beams (I assume it is the same with other spell, but I play toss and don't use too many storms, so I don't know) and after my first click I am no longer in the mode to cast the spell even though I still have the key pressed on the keyboard. This only happens when my mouse is over a unit at the time that I select the spell by hitting the key on my keyboard. Has anyone else experienced this?I am using a Razer Abyssus with the Razer drivers.

Maybe your repeat delay is too long on your keyboard. You hold "F" then click twice but you keyboard hasn't issued another "F" command between the two clicks.Just change the repeat delay and frequency in your keyboard settings and you should be fine.